Compostela Valley – A 2-day Bayan-Anihan Planning and Workshop was held on September 1-2 at Mabini as preparation for its full implementation in the province.

Participated by the Municipal Gawad Kalinga (GK) Coordinators, Municipal Council of Women Presidents and Coordinators, Municipal Local Government Operation Officers, Municipal Agriculturist Office Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Officers, ABC Presidents of the eleven municipalities, the 2 day planning and workshop was jointly facilitated by Provincial Agriculturist Office, Women Development Program of the Special Programs Unit of Governor Uy and GK COMVAL Chapter.

The program concept is the inspiration behind Bayan-anihan—Gawad Kalinga’s (GK) food sufficiency arm, which was established to eradicate hunger by empowering poor families to produce their own food via backyard or organic farming. It advocates for a hunger-free Philippines under the battle cry, “Goodbye Gutom! Empower the poor. Eradicate hunger.”

In the presentation of the program overview and rationale, Assistant Provincial Agriculturist Manolo Serafin C. Cayme explained how the province come up with an idea of having a Bayan Anihan project. According to him, Bayan – Anihan is indeed the centerpiece of vegetable production for “food in every table”.

As its main objective, Bayan-anihan (BA) aims to launch 2,500 farms in the next three years to feed at least 500,000 people for life with the aid of multi-sectoral partnership among GK and the Department of Agriculture (DA), agricultural schools, local government units (LGUs), non-government organizations (NGOs), major corporations and the youth.

This also aims to establish backyard vegetable farms in all barangays of Compostela Valley as part of the common goals of ensuring food security and generating jobs for hunger-prone families. This would be crucial in helping government achieve its goal of providing food on the table of every Filipino family.

With the inspiration of Gawad Kalinga, Bayan-Anihan will be implemented per municipality. Each municipality will have an area identified by the local government. The provincial government will extend P100,000.00 per municipality (allotted for 3 barangays) to defray the cost of materials for the project and the seedlings (variety of vegetables) will be provided by the provincial agriculturist office. Identified recipients coming from the screened poorest of the poor member of the council of women will work out the propagation and cultivation of the Bayan-Anihan.

Anchored with PNoy’s legislative agenda and inspired by the values of Gawad Kalinga, months from now, all municipalities of Compostela Valley will have a Bayan-Anihan area both in the GK Villages and in the barangays. (Rodielyn A. Manugas-IDS COMVAL)